Mercenary
by Thozmp Corris
Summary: Ever wonder how Ratchet can take on armies almost singlehanded, maybe it has to do with his heritage. Set pre R&C 1, doesn't take anything from R&C:ToD.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Ratchet and Clank, or any affiliated works thereof.

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It was a good time for Raze, wars were spanning systems, the whole galaxy it seemed, and he was getting paid hand over fist. Yes, it was a good time to be a mercenary, especially one who was good at his job and enjoyed it so very much. What he didn't enjoy was being in drop ships, there were always soldiers that were technically on 'his side' that he wasn't supposed to kill.

"Two minutes till infiltration point. Good…luck?" Raze just glared at the officer who was his current employer, a lieutenant or something, it didn't matter, they never sent in soldiers with Raze, he worked best when alone.

"Sure you can pull this off, short stuff?" one of the grunts asked, jokingly, only to be hushed up quickly by his fellow soldiers. Raze could hear them whispering. "Do you want to die?" "Don't you know who he is?" "Don't you know _what_ he is?"

Raze turned to the offending soldier and gave him a toothy grin, tightening his grip on his axe, "I don't see why not. After all," Raze buried the axe blade deep in the soldier's chest, "The enemy reaches all the way to the ground."

"We're at the drop point." The radio crackled. Raze yanked his axe out of the corpse, heading for the hatch. Just because he wasn't supposed to kill 'his' soldiers didn't really stop him from doing it. Opening the hatch he felt the sudden rush of air try to suck him out prematurely, quickly securing his axe and blaster so they wouldn't come loose, he peered down at his target, a warship gently cruising through the planet's atmosphere.

He did a final check in the fall pack they'd given him, its jets couldn't lift him up, but it slow his descent so he wouldn't be a smear on the warship's hull. Taking a breath, raze jumped out of the drop ship, and saw it flee as soon as he was clear. Now came the tricky part. At one hundred above the ship he activated the fall pack, slowing him so that he landed with a hard thud instead of a splat. Raze looked across the hull quickly hoping to find a nearby emergency hatch and was surprised to see one not but twenty feet to his left.

Quickly making his way inside, and replacing the hatch, he peered out into the corridor he had just crawled into, and somewhat disappointed at not seeing anyone, stepped fully into the hallway, axe in hand, and reflected on his orders.

Raze had been told to simply secure the ship and get it to the rendezvous point. He wasn't sure what his employer had meant by secure, so he fell back on his own definition and started searching for enemy soldiers. It took him a minute and a half to come across his first target, and was slightly disappointed to see it was a battle droid, he preferred real victims to mechanical ones, but it was still satisfying to hear the crunch as his axe fell the bot.

For nearly twenty minutes Raze smashed all the battle droids he came across, until he finally heard the intruder alarm go off. Raze grinned, he wouldn't have to search anymore. Pulling out his blaster Raze prepared for the waves of robots and headed for the bridge. In the first five minutes of his walk to the bridge he had already matched his kill count for the first twenty minutes, and continued his mechanical slaughter stealing the droids' ammo as he went.

Another ten minutes of searching had him standing in front of the door to the bridge, sealed tight against the intruder. Raze thought for a moment before searching one of the droids that littered the corridor. Not finding anything on them, he started to tear apart the droids, this time with his hands, and not causing any damage to the parts. A few minutes later he had a jury-rigged explosive, which was just waiting to blow open the door to the bridge.

Ducking around a nearby corridor he detonated his makeshift bomb, and smiled at the result. The door was gone, as well as part of the walls, and he'd inadvertently created a smokescreen. Blaster and axe in hand, he stepped through the smoke and quickly dispatched three soldiers on the bridge before they could react. Raze was happy to note that these were flesh and blood soldiers instead of the bots he'd been smashing.

One soldier was paralyzed with fear at the sight of Raze, his mouth working to form words that weren't coming, until he finally cried out a word that tended to strike fear in almost every soldier in the galaxy.

"_**LOMBAX!!!**_"


	2. Chapter 2

Captain Lorkan tried not to stare at the smallish creature before him, he'd heard they didn't like being stared at, but after what he'd seen on the battleship _Hortian_ he didn't want to take his eyes off of the cat-like alien incase there was a repeat.

Lorkan was certain that the orders given to the lombax were that the _Hortian_ be secured and taken to the rendezvous point. The problem occurred in that "secured" was undefined by the lieutenant who originally hired the mercenary known as Raze; who then defined it was "Killing everything on board." The battleship arrived, in one piece, and inside was a mess that caused most of his men to lose their lunch at the sight of it, and they were battle-hardened veterans.

Lorkan almost regretted sending an assistant to get the money for the little killing machine, it meant that he was in a room alone with it; unfortunately, if he had gone to get the money himself, it would have meant that he had left it alone in his office, and that was just asking for trouble. Lorkan looked at his report again, just to got his eyes off of Raze, and they crept towards the pictures of the bridge of the _Hortian_ once more, making him a little nauseas and in awe that anything could do this single handedly.

Lorkan looked away from the pictures, wondering to himself just how long it took to get the creatures money, and trying to recall what he knew of Lombax in general. It only accounted for a few things, such as: (1) other species didn't get along well with Lombax; of course this might not be a fact. It was hard to tell because of the next fact, which was, (2) Lombax didn't get along with other species; this was very true, and it seemed that their custom greeting was to rip the head off of the stranger. Which brought up the strangest thing he knew of these violently tempered, fur-covered, killing machines, which was (3) Lombax didn't get along with each other. Lorkan knew this one for a certainty, as he'd witnessed it first hand.

Long ago, at the start of his military career, he'd been a private, at a bar with a few friends and an older sergeant. He'd been drinking, when a haggard lombax walked in, everyone quieted and tried not to draw its attention, the barman simple filled its glass and didn't charge it anything, as if this little act might prevent massacre. It was hard to tell seeing as another lombax walked in shortly after, this one younger, and was surprised to find the older drinking there. Tension instantly filled the air, as several of the patrons tried to sneak out, some not even trying to sneak and just running for the door, barman included. Lorkan had stayed because he'd never seen a lombax before, much less two, and didn't realize the danger in his drunken state.

The older lombax had glared at the younger and vice versa, and at that point, the sergeant started to drag his soldiers out, because he knew what was coming next. As Lorkan was shoved through the door, he could just glimpse the two lombax leaping for the other's throat. The next day he read that the two had destroyed half a city block in their attempts to kill each other, and it only ended when the older one had the younger lombax's head in his hands with the body a good ten feet away.

Lorkan shook himself out of his thoughts, and glanced at a nearby chronometer, showing that a little over five minutes had passed. This left Lorkan to wonder if the creatures could slow time so that they could kill more…

The door opened to reveal Captain Lorkan's assistant, who was entering with two cases, setting them down beside the lombax. "12,000 uni-bolts, as per contract." The lombax accepted the payment, not even counting the money.

Raze turned his gaze towards Lorkan once more, as if expecting something from the captain, who in turned tried not to stutter under the small alien's gaze, "We will contact you again should the need for your services ever arise." Raze nodded at the captain's words, took the cases and left. Lorkan, for his part, visibly sagged with relief, he doubted if he'd purchase the services of a lombax anytime soon. Especially since he found out that a nearby company had one currently employed in their ranks, for whatever tenure its contract said. The final thing Lorkan knew about Lombax was this, never let two lombax become aware of each others existence, especially if they were in your ranks; they'd kill each other before anything else, and deities help whatever was caught in their way.


End file.
